Policies, Reports, Guidance and Resources
Hoarding
Select the (+) drop down menus to download and view the policies and guidance.
Adult Safeguarding
To support those who work with adults at risk the partnerships’ Policy and Procedures document set outs the roles and responsibilities of different organisations and those agencies should work together to effectively safeguarding adults. Please download our local policy and procedures document to ensure you know what is expected of you and how we can work together to safeguarding adults with care and support needs.
Partnership Policies and Procedures
What Constitutes a Safeguarding Concern
What does a ‘good’ Adult Safeguarding referral look like?
Revisiting Safeguarding Practice
Making Safeguarding Personal
SVPP Economic Abuse Factsheet
Escalation Policy Flowchart
Escalation Notification Form
Allegations Against Adults
Allegations Against Adults who work with Children
Allegations Against Adults - Education and Early Years Settings
Allegations Management Policy - This policy is currently under review and will be added to the website once updated.
Bereavement Support
Case Resolution
Child Death Process
Child Protection Conferences
Children Missing from Home and Care
Child Sexual Abuse
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) for England and Wales has published its final report. The report draws on evidence from public hearings, the Inquiry’s research programme and submissions to the ‘Truth Project’ from people who were sexually abused as children. Recommendations include: introducing a statutory requirement of mandatory reporting, establishing a national scheme to provide monetary reparations to those who experienced sexual abuse in institutions, and creating Child Protection Authorities for England and for Wales to improve child protection practice, provide advice to government and monitor implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations. NSPCC Learning has published a CASPAR briefing summarising the report’s findings and recommendations.
Read the report: The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual AbuseRead the CASPAR briefing: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) final report: CASPAR briefing
Intra-familial child sexual abuse: risk factors, indicators and protective factors (Research in Practice) – Practice Tool
This resource is designed to support practitioners to use research evidence to structure their thinking in relation to intra-familial child sexual abuse (IFCSA). The practice tool provides helpful information on:
Centre of Expertise on CSA: Key messages from research on children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour. Centre of Expertise on CSA: Key messages from research on children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour.
- ‘How It Is’, an image vocabulary to support children to communicate about a range of important issues, produced by Triangle and the NSPCC
- NWG Network – Have produced a leaflet that aims to be an Online Sexual Harm Reduction Guide.
- NSPCC – information and resources on sexual abuse
- Centre of expertise on CSA – established to help bring about significant and system wide change in how CSA is responded to locally and nationally. Funded by the Home office and led by Barnardo’s
- Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, understanding risk and vulnerability – review looking at risk indicators and protective factors for Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation. Carried out by Coventry University on behalf of the Early Intervention Foundation, and funded by the Home Office
- National institute for Health and Care Excellence – various links to useful research on CSA
- Parents Protect – an information and resources website which aims to raise awareness about child sexual abuse, answer questions and give adults the information, advice, support and facts, they need to help protect children
- Stop it Now! UK and Ireland is a child sexual abuse prevention campaign and is run by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation
- MOSAC – voluntary organisation supporting mothers of sexually abused children
- Survivors UK helps men who have been sexually abused and raises awareness of their needs. Sexual violation includes both childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual assault/rape
- NAPAC – registered charity supporting recovery from childhood abuse
- IISCA – Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
- Neglect, Intra-familial Child Sexual Abuse: Evidence Scope 2 – Exploring the relationship between neglect and adult perpetrated intra-familial child sexual abuse
- RiP – Supporting evidence-informed practice with children and families
Child Sexual Exploitation
- Barnardo’s resource pack to help identify and engage young people at risk of CSE. The pack features downloadable worksheets and posters for both boys and girls at risk.
- National Working Group (NWG): You can promote the #saysomething campaign and raise awareness with young people you work with. The following posters were produced by the National Working Group (NWG) which has a range of resources for parents and professionals:
- Practice Guidance (from Centre of Expertise on CSA):
- Children with Special Educational Needs or Disability (SEND) ‘How It Is’, an image vocabulary to support children to communicate about a range of important issues, produced by Triangle and the NSPCC
Contextual Safeguarding (Including Risks Outside the Home (ROTH))
If you have safeguarding concerns for an individual young person that includes risk outside the home, the ROTH form can be completed and submitted alongside a referral to the MASH, where the additional information will be considered as part of the triaging process. This form does not replace a referral to MASH for individual safeguarding concerns. ROTH forms submitted to MASH with a referral will be cascaded to the Emerald Team and Young People’s Service, where ROTH concerns will be reviewed and actioned alongside any threshold decision from MASH.
If you have safeguarding concerns regarding risk outside the home for a context, such as a location, you are able to complete the ROTH form and send it directly to the Emerald team using the EmeraldWiltshire@wiltshire.gov.uk email address. An example of this would be a physical location where young people are known/ suspected to be at risk, but individual names of young people aren’t known. This allows the Young People’s Service, wider Families and Children’s colleagues and multi-agency safeguarding partners to review concerns and instigate a context assessment/ intervention to help reduce risk and increase safety in places and spaces.
Conference documents and supporting guidance (CP ROTH documents)
Criminal Exploitation
Discharge Planning
Domestic Abuse including DASH Risk Assessment and MARAC referral form
Early Support Assessment
Visit the Assessment Tools page to view the Early Support Assessment tool and supporting information.
FGM, Honour Based Violence and Forced Marriage
The Right to Choose: Government Guidance on Forced Marriage
Female genital mutilation: resource pack
CPS Factsheet: Female Genital Mutilation
Home Office/FCO multi-agency statutory guidance
Free training: The Home Office are offering FMPO/FGMPO workshops - http://forced-marriage-unit.eventbrite.com
Health video on virginity testing and hymenoplasty https://youtu.be/dWgjO7-efL8.
New forced marriage legislation – commencement date 27th Feb 2023. Raises the marriage age in England and Wales to 18 years. (Scotland and NI are not considering the legislation at this time). See policy summary here.
Video on abuse linked to faith and belief: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afiBsJ5Lyfo
Flowcharts
Graded Care Profile 2 (GCP2)
Visit the Assessment Tools page to view the Early Support Assessment tool and supporting information.
Harmful sexual behaviours
High Risk Professional Meeting Guidance
The guidance provides a framework for the management of very complex cases where, despite continuing work, serious risks are still present and all other safeguarding options / action / protection and interventions have been exhausted.
High Risk Professional Meeting (HRPM) Guidance
High Risk Professional Meeting (HRPM) Tool
High risk Professional Meeting (HRPM) Action Plan
You can view a short recording which gives an example HRPM scenario and includes Q&A's, here.
Hoarding
The Wiltshire Multi-agency Hoarding Protocol is aimed to improve how all agencies deal with people with hoarding behaviours using a person centred approach. It is designed for operational use with a series of appendices to assist in signposting referrals to the appropriate agencies.
Additional resources:
Modern Slavery
A briefing on modern day slavery and how to report concerns can be found here.
Together with a slide deck to support the presentation here.
Multi-agency Forums (MAFs)
Multi-agency Forums, or MAFs, as they are more commonly known, are community based meetings where agencies come together to discuss relevant issues relating to safeguarding and the well-being of children and young people. Members may discuss cases either to get advice from other agencies or to share information and because these meetings are community based they can discuss issues most relevant to their area. Those who attend MAFs tell us that they find them really helpful and supportive in their work. Details of those currently active with contact details for the Coordinator can be found below.
Please find the latest MAF dates here.
Neglect of Children
All agencies have a responsibility to act on concerns around neglect or suspected neglect and to ensure professionals are confident in the identification, assessment and response to neglect at the earliest signs. This framework is designed to highlight best practice and tools that can help in our recognition of and response to neglect and aims to:
- To develop an increased understanding, common language, and a shared narrative of neglect across the partnership. We will measure this by monitoring attendance at Neglect and GCP2 courses and promoting training using the SVPP website.
- Increase and embed the use of the GCP2 as a tool to assess parenting capacity and target support. We will measure this by monitoring the number of GCP2s being completed in the county.
- Improve our response to early signs of neglect. We will measure this by monitoring referrals from key agencies and tracking of GCP2s being used at an early help level, and the use of ESAs in relation to concerns about neglect.
Visit the Neglect page to see the full Wiltshire Neglect Framework.
Organisational Abuse
The Organisational Abuse Procedures exist to help professionals when dealing with concerns in relation to the organisational abuse of adults with care and support needs. It applies when:
- It is known or suspected that organisational abuse has taken place – including neglect and poor care practice within an institution or specific care setting such as a hospital or care home, for example, or in relation to care provided in one’s own home. This may range from one off incidents to on-going ill-treatment. It can be through neglect or poor professional practice as a result of the structure, policies, processes and practices within an organisation.
- Or it is known or suspected that one individual or a group of individuals have conspired to abuse two or more individual adults at risk on a number of occasions in an organised way. That individual or group may not be associated with a professional setting.
Organisational safeguarding action applies to all services who work with adults with care and support needs, regardless of who is funding their support or whether they are regulated by CQC or not.
Parental Conflict
Person in a Position of Trust (PiPOT)
Pregnancy and pre Birth Assessment
BaNES, Swindon and Wiltshire Pre-birth Protocol to Safeguard Unborn Babies
Professionals are encouraged to use this practical resource – Vulnerability and Protective Factors in Pregnancy to Early Parenthood to increase their awareness of the breadth of factors that may impact on the development of unborn children and infants and to ensure families receive the support they need to give children in Wiltshire the best start in life. It includes a summary page with information on application in practice which can be used as a standalone resource.
Private Fostering
Safeguarding Under 1s and Injuries to Non Mobile Babies and Children
Self Neglect
This SVPP guidance will help you identify the signs of self-neglect and know how to respond. Recent Safeguarding Adults Reviews have shown us that we need to do more to support our workforce to safeguard those who may be self-neglecting. In response, this guide and tool is for you to use and to share with colleagues.
The guidance explains what self-neglect is and the various forms takes. It will help you identify the signs and understand how you can support someone who you think may be self-neglecting. The Self-Neglect Risk Assessment Tool is there as an Appendix to help you assess the risk and how to respond accordingly.
The full guidance can be found here.
A quick reference guide is also available here for you. We suggest that you print this out to put in any communal areas in your workplace where people may find this helpful.
Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) and Safer Sleep
Having effective safe sleep conversations with families supports the prevention of sudden unexpected deaths of infants (SUDI). Whilst advice and guidance are routinely given to parents by maternity and health visiting staff, national and local reviews show that it is every professional’s responsibility to promote safer sleep. We want to support all practitioners to become familiar with safe sleeping information and advice so they too can have effective safe sleep conversations with parents and families.
Please see the SUDI Prevention Policy and Prevention Pathway Action Card which raises awareness of safe sleep messages and risks factors.
Thresholds for Adult Safeguarding
The Wiltshire Threshold for Access to Safeguarding Services Matrix was developed by the Wiltshire Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) in partnership with our safeguarding partners.
It provides guidance for professionals to clarify circumstances where reporting to the Adult Safeguarding Team is the appropriate course of action.
It clearly sets out guidance (not exhaustive) for circumstances which are reportable and not reportable to Adult Safeguarding.
You can access the Threshold Matrix here. A briefing, giving an overview of the matrix, can be found here.
As a working document, it will be updated where required so the copy accessed here will be the most up to date version.
REMEMBER: If you are unsure whether to report a concern, or wish to seek further advice, please contact Wiltshire MASH Duty Team on 01380 826510 for further support.
Thresholds for Children's Safeguarding
Transitional Safeguarding
What to do if you are worried a child is being abused or neglected
National Guidance